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parties. "There are ways that Lauren has
captured all of us-you can put yourselfin
there, at a very personal level, in terms of
an aspiration for family, and what home
means to all of us," he said. ''You can see
how it sort of became supersized." The
film, he went on, "is really about values-
it's about asking ourselves when we have
enough, and what we really need, and
what we want, and when we can be
. fi d "
satIs e .
Greenfield, who made the editorial
decision that she had enough to conclude
her film in November, 2011, the point at
which Westgate sells its interest in the
Las Vegas property, explained that David
Siegel is unsatisfied with the film's narra-
tive trajectory. "He's actually suing for
defamation," she told the audience. One
of the film's darker scenes depicts a grim
birthday dinner held when Versailles is on
the market and Jackie is pondering the
possibility that they will have to give up
the twenty-six-thousand-square-foot
house they already occupy; Siegel says that
if he has to live until he's a hundred and
fifty to get back on top he will. "I think he
would have liked me to continue filming
until he was a hundred and fifty and got
back on top," she said. (In his suit, Siegel
contends that Westgate is profitable. A
statement issued by the company says
Greenfield has constructed" a self-serving
'reality TV narrative rather than a true
and honest documentary.") Jackie, mean-
while, has been attending film festivals
with Greenfield to promote the movie; at
one, in Sarasota, Greenfield says Jackie
went to a local diner and requested caviar.
Greenfield praised the candor of both
Siegels; and their willingness to unburden
themselves to her is impressive testament
to her subtle interviewing skills. More ob-
vious is the pleasure she takes in docu-
menting Jackie's stupendous décolletage,
itself the product of an implausible bubble
mentality. Jackie "was kind of an unusual
rich person, because she didn't have this
protective veil that often comes with
wealth," Greenfield said. She had fond
words for David Siegel, too. "He would
always be incredibly generous with his
time, and also candid," she said. "And so,
in a way, that kind of made me love him,
in a subject-filmmaker kind of way."
-Rebecca Mead
CAIRO POSTCARD
WAS T A
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rrwo Sundays ago, ninety minutes after
.L Mohamed Morsi was named the
winner of the first free Presidential elec-
tion in Egyptian history, Mohamed
Morsi appeared in the headquarters of the
Freedom and Justice Party in downtown
Cairo. He wore old sneakers and a dirty
blue shirt soaked with sweat. It was nearly
a hundred degrees, and Morsi had walked
all the way from EI Madabegh, an hour
away. He was empty-handed except for
his government-issued I.D., which he
displayed for everybody he met. One of
these people was T arek Farhat, the super-
visor of the media center for the Party,
which is the political organization of the
Muslim Brotherhood.
"I voted for this man, and we share the
same name," Morsi told Farhat. "So
please help me get in contact with him or
somebody who can help me." Morsi ex-
plained that recently his oldest daughter
had applied to study nursing at a govem-
D.i
'You're not supposed to give refreshments to them , you idiot!"
ment hospital, but the administrators had
demanded a bribe of more than a thou-
sand dollars. He had four other children,
and he earned about six dollars a day on
the assembly line of a leather-goods fac-
tory. Apart from paying the bribe, his only
other option was to cultivate wasta, or
connections. In Egypt, wasta is critical to
success, although it usually runs a lot
deeper than the accident of a shared
name. But Mohamed Morsi is a relatively
distinctive name, and an hour is not a long
walk for many men in Cairo.
"1' m sorry, but I can't help you," Farhat
said, and he advised Morsi to wait a cou-
ple of days and then visit his neighbor-
hood office. "Everybody is celebrating
now," he explained. The room was grow-
ing loud; groups of bearded young men
greeted each other with shouts, and the
chairman of a Brotherhood think tank ar-
rived and embraced a colleague. Two J ap-
anese journalists sat nearby, waiting for an
interview. If Mohamed Morsi felt out of
place, he didn't show it, and he told his
story to anybody who would listen.
"I got injured on January 28th, when I
broke a rib," he said, referring to one of
the violent days of protest in 2011, before
Hosni Mubarak resigned. Mter the in-
jury, Morsi had applied to the Ministry of
Social Solidarity for reparations. "But all
they did was call me during Ramadan last
year and give me a box with margarine,
cooking oil, sugar, and rice." He said that
his visit to the Party office was spontane-
ous. "I came here to catch the moment,"
he explained. "1' m just trying to get a busi-
ness card from anybody."
His factory had let everybody off early
that afternoon. In Cairo, the past week
had been tense; after the polls closed on
June 17th, the initial results indicated a
clear victory for Morsi, but the election
commission delayed the official an-
nouncement. This came in the wake of
events that were described by many as a
soft coup by the ruling military council,
which had dissolved the Brotherhood-
dominated Parliament and issued a new
provisional constitution. Morsi's oppo-
nent, Ahmed Shafik, a former Air Force
general, had been the last Prime Minis-
ter under Mubarak, and people believed
that the election was being stolen in his
favor. There were reports of troop deploy-
ments around the country; somebody
started a rumor on F acebook that the state
television building had been occupied